


Counterfeit Girl

by spinstitcher (stygian)



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crack, F/F, F/M, Female Protagonist, Fix-It, Iron Man 3 Spoilers, Loki Does What He Wants, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Women Being Awesome, angstcrack, natasha goes world-wandering, sex positivity, which is to cast mysterious spells that fuck everything up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 17:32:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stygian/pseuds/spinstitcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha steps out of her universe and into another. And then another. And another. Some of them are empty, some ruined, and some eerily familiar. There are Lokis who aren’t villains and Starks who aren’t obnoxious and Phil Coulsons in frilly aprons. And there are Black Widows. Lots of them. </p><p>As the situation unfolds Natasha starts to wonder if she’ll ever get home – or if she even wants to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Ovid’s _Metamorphoses, Book X_.
> 
> Warnings: some violence.

Natasha’s halfway through breakfast when the call comes in. Loki’s back and wreaking havoc in Brooklyn. Rogers is outraged, and Thor is nowhere to be seen. Stark thinks it’s hilarious, but then Stark thinks everything is hilarious including that one time he pretended he was dead after a mission and then jumped out of a trapdoor during the debrief and shouted “SURPRISE!” (Rogers had fainted and Natasha had punched Stark in the face.)

She brings her half-finished plate of blini to the briefing. Breakfast is a meal to be enjoyed alone in silence, but it’s also the most important meal of the day, and she’s not going to miss it if she can help it. She gets cranky when she’s hungry, and with Loki back she needs to keep her wits about her.

“Ooh, pancakes!” says Stark brightly, making a grab for them. Natasha brandishes her fork like a weapon and puts on her best don’t-fuck-with-my-blini-or-I’ll-fuck-with-your-organs face. Some things are sacred.

Tony pouts and retreats, though he keeps a covetous eye on her plate. Natasha takes a bite and smiles sweetly at him. Bitter orange jam bursts across her tongue.

“Children,” says the Director. He looks displeased, but Natasha thinks that’s just the way his face looks. “Quiet down.”

“Sir, yes, _sir_ ,” says Stark smartly, ripping off the most flamboyant, ridiculous, twirly salute Natasha has ever seen. The salute takes at least thirty seconds to complete, and Stark ends it with a flourish, swinging his hand behind him to poke Rogers lightly in the nose.

Rogers sneezes.

Natasha shares an exasperated look with Clint and takes a seat at the table. Generally Banner’s pretty good at controlling Stark’s wilder excesses, but Banner’s back in India for the week and they’re suffering in his absence. “Sir, what’s the situation?”

“Loki broke out of Fairyland and he’s back for revenge,” says Fury. His customary scowl deepens. “Revenge in the form of turning three blocks of flats into ice cream.”

There is a brief silence.

“Ice cream,” says Rogers.

“You know,” says Stark thoughtfully, “the guy’s starting to grow on me.”

“You think this is funny?” asks Fury, raising his eyebrows. “People are freezing to death as we speak. Get out there, I need you to apprehend that little bastard.”

Natasha’s out of her seat and through the door before Fury even finishes his sentence. Rogers and Stark follow her, bickering light-heartedly. Clint’s tightly wound, fondling one of his arrows.

Since she joined SHIELD Natasha’s been a spy, not a soldier, but the Red Room raised her to be both and there’s no use wasting talent. The Avengers Initiative needs Black Widow. It doesn’t need Tasha, but Tasha’s coming along for the ride whether she likes it or not. The Black Widow is her soul, her mirror half, her little monster hidden within the body that the Red Room made for her.

She gets to the Quinjet within minutes, Clint already at the helm, Stark and Rogers suited up and strapping themselves in. Agent Wu’s voice crackles through the intercom, giving them directions, and Natasha spares a short, painful moment to wish that it was Phil’s voice telling them where to go before she wraps up the thought and buries it deep within her. They don’t have time for sentiment. They’ve got a Norse god to take down.

Clint’s face is hard and cold and she can’t read anything from it. She reaches out and places her hand upon his wrist. He shakes it off.

No time for sentiment.

By the time they get to Brooklyn it looks like the populace is torn between running in crazed, mob-mentality terror and revelling in the frozen goodness lining the streets. Well, melting into the streets. There’s a small child lying in the middle of the road making snow angels.

Rogers barks out orders and Stark flies up over the slowly-collapsing buildings, thermal scanning for anyone trapped inside. Occasionally he darts into a building and emerges carrying shivering, starstruck New Yorkers. Clint clambers up to the top of the nearest non-ice-creamed building and keeps an eye out for Loki. Natasha hovers by the Quinjet, feeling mostly redundant. Until they find their Big Bad for the day there’s nothing much she can do. It’s a galling feeling, and one that she’s not very familiar with. Usually there’s someone she can manipulate, or something that she can punch, at least. Today it’s just ice cream.

Loki being Loki, he doesn’t stay away for long; he can’t resist coming back to gloat about his wild plot. Soon enough he shows up on top of the building neighbouring Clint’s, and he’s not quiet about it. The guy’s more of a drama queen than Stark, and that’s saying something. Thor’s still nowhere to be seen. Natasha has to wonder if Asgard’s even noticed their prisoner’s absence yet.

She uses her Widow’s Line to get up at Loki’s level, and manages to get to him before Clint does. She doesn’t get there before Clint’s arrows, but Loki seems to enjoy deflecting them by turning them into birds or butterflies or little puffs of sparkly dust. Needless to say, Clint’s not impressed.

“Loki,” says Natasha, drawing his attention. He looks her up and down, noting the ice cream smeared over her boots, and smirks. “Long time no see.”

“Natasha Alianovna,” he purrs. “Or is that Ivanovna?”

She cocks her head. “It’s just Black Widow to you. Why the ice cream?”

“It’s frozen and delicious,” he says. She waits for him to continue but it seems like that’s all he’s got. Huh.

“Seems like a poor reason to attract the ire of SHIELD,” she observes.

“SHIELD didn’t have to get involved,” he returns. “ _This,_ ” – he sweeps an arm out in front of him, to indicate the melting borough – “is hardly a matter of national security.”

“Well, we tend to take it badly when war criminals mess up our major cities,” she demurs. “You didn’t have to come back here. You could have gone to Montreal. Or Moscow. Or Melbourne. You know, something starting with M for _mewling quim_.” Yeah, she hasn’t forgotten that one.

All credit to Loki, he looks slightly abashed. “But I have no quarrel with Montreal,” he says, bewildered.

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Well, we’re ever so sorry for foiling your evil plots for world domination. Except, wait, no, we’re _not_. Surrender or I’ll beat your ass into the concrete.”

Loki scowls, and doesn’t surrender.

Natasha beats his ass.

Five minutes later she’s got a throbbing gash in her shoulder, courtesy of Loki’s glowstick, her knuckles are bruised, and she’s sitting on top of him, folding his arms behind his back. Loki’s moaning and cursing in turns, and wriggling half-heartedly. His glowstick was knocked off the building in the scuffle, and as far as Natasha can see it’s currently sinking into the sugary mess twelve storeys below them.

It’s at this point that Clint and Rogers finally join the party.

“Hi, Tasha,” says Clint. “Weather’s nice.”

“I, er,” says Rogers, casting a morbidly fascinated eye at Natasha’s knee, which is hovering perilously close to Loki’s groin, “I see you’ve got everything under control. Well done, Widow.” He turns his back to them and speaks into his earpiece. “Iron Man, report...”

“Most of the civilians are out of the way,” says Stark. He sounds out of breath. “No fatalities as of yet. Couple minor cases of frostbite. One guy here might need to get his stomach pumped, he ate most of his furniture.”

Clint pulls a face.

Natasha frowns and looks down at Loki, who has given up on trying to escape and is now drooling placidly into the roof beneath them. Something here doesn’t add up. Last time Loki paid them a visit he destroyed a good chunk of Manhattan, and this time he’s just here for some harmless fun? What happened to the bitter, ruined creature that vowed to see all of Earth burn?

“He’s up to something,” she warns them.

Clint scoffs. “When is he _not_ up to something?”

Rogers gives Loki a sharp look, and then nods. “We won’t bring him back to the Helicarrier this time. There are plenty of secure lockups in the city that’ll do just fine. Iron Man, what’s your status?”

“Done,” says Stark. “Last one’s out. If they keep mucking around in the streets they’re going to get squashed, though. Those buildings are about to topple.”

“Cops can handle that,” says Rogers. “Loki’s our priority now. Time to go.”

Natasha straightens up, allowing Loki to get up from the ground but keeping his hands trapped behind his back. Clint passes her the super special anti-magic cuffs and she fastens them around his wrists. Loki slumps, all the energy seeming to drain out of him.

They get him into the Quinjet and then into a cell without any further drama. Natasha watches him through the mirrored window for a while, trying to read the lines of his body, the minute wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the clasp of his hands. He’s a blank canvas. He’s planning something but she can’t tell what, and this time he’s not going to underestimate her again, not going to be prodded into revealing his scheme.

Loki looks up at her – even though he can’t possibly know that she’s watching – and smiles like a shark. That is, he smiles like a shark _would_ smile, if sharks could smile at all, which they can’t.

Natasha clenches her fists, and leaves.

SHIELD’s fine doctors stitch up her shoulder in about five minutes, and then keep her there for half an hour longer to scold her on the dangers of not seeking medical attention sooner. She waits patiently through the lecture and then goes to get lunch. Clint’s not in the mess hall. He’s been avoiding her lately. She’s been avoiding him too, a little. There’s a conversation they both need to have, but it’s not one that she’s looking forward to instigating.

A sharp, irrational pang of anger thrills through her, and she suppresses it. It’s not Clint’s fault. It’s not Phil’s fault either; it was always a hazard of the job that he’d get his stupidly brave ass killed someday, and she and Clint knew that. Know that. Without him, though, they’re left stumbling in the dark, trying to figure out what they mean to each other without Phil between them.

If Clint wants nothing to do with her, she won’t blame him.

But she might blame herself.

She goes back to her quarters and throws out all the ice cream in her freezer, then curls up with her well-thumbed copy of _Anna Karenina_ and a mug of Earl Grey. The wound in her shoulder pulses uncomfortably. There’s a lump in her throat. Sentiment.

Her concentration’s shot to hell and she can’t bring herself to enjoy the novel. Eventually she puts it down and suits up again. She needs to talk to Clint, and she’d rather be armoured for it, even if he’s always been able to see beneath her armour. Her boots are still covered in ice cream, so she leaves them off.

The corridors of the Helicarrier are deserted and cold. Her bare feet are silent, and she only passes one person in between her quarters and the shooting range: an intern who looks terrified and promptly rushes off. She won’t deny that she enjoys scaring the interns. It’s a perk of the job.

Of course Clint’s in the shooting range. He’s rarely anywhere else when he’s got something on his mind. His back’s to her, and he’s loosing arrow after arrow into shredded targets. Not all of the clusters are in the bullseye, but he doesn’t always aim for the bullseye.

Natasha clears her throat. “I know you hate talking,” she says. Hell, she hates talking too. Sometimes it’s hard to admit to the strange feelings squirming around inside her breast. “But we need to talk. About Phil. About us.”

Clint’s muscles lock up and he stops shooting. Natasha tenses.

His reaction... isn’t exactly what she expects.

He whirls around and looses an arrow at her head. She dodges just in time, and Clint drops his bow with a roar and lunges at her, catching her around the waist and pinning her to the ground. She’s caught off guard. She’s _never_ caught off guard. But then, Clint _never_ mixes up emotions with violence; he’s terrified of turning into his abusive father. Something’s going on here. Maybe this was a part of Loki’s plan. Maybe Clint’s compromised again.

He presses one arm against her throat. She lies still, ready to deploy her Widow’s Sting at a moment’s notice.

“How did you get in here?” he demands. There’s an ugly, feverish light in his eyes, but they’re not frozen over like they had been when he was under Loki’s thrall. “How did you infiltrate SHIELD?”

Windpipe effectively cut off, choking for air, Natasha stares up at Clint’s furious expression and notices one tiny detail out of place. There’s a faint scar on his chin, just below his anchor point. It’s an old scar, well-healed, completely innocuous apart from the fact that it’s a scar he didn’t have this morning.

“Answer me!” he snarls, and Natasha blinks up at him.

Something is very wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: some violence, gratuitous _Back to the Future_ references

“I’m not who you think I am,” she says carefully. “You have to calm down.”

The pressure against her throat increases, and Clint snarls at her. “You’re the Black Widow. I know who you are. Tell me why you’re here.”

“I _live_ here,” says Natasha. She feels a little lightheaded, and knows that her face is purpling from the lack of oxygen. She holds Clint’s gaze with her own. “I don’t know what’s going on but I swear to you I will find out. Let me go. I won’t move.”

“Like your word is worth anything,” says Clint. He doesn’t let up.

“I swear on Phil’s grave,” she chokes out.

Clint’s brow furrows. “Who the hell is Phil?”

Natasha goes limp beneath him. Some of her shock must show in her expression, no matter that she tries to suppress it. She’s never been good at keeping her masks up around Clint. “You don’t know,” she says. Her voice doesn’t break. “You don’t know?”

Clint is about to answer her when the door bursts open and a team of armed SHIELD agents swarm into the room. One of them is Sitwell. She has lunch with Sitwell on Thursdays. The others she doesn’t recognise.

“Don’t move,” says Agent Sitwell. There is a _very_ large gun pointed at her head. Actually, there are a lot of very large guns pointed at her head. Natasha doesn’t appreciate this; she makes it a point to avoid having big guns pointed at her whenever possible. “Black Widow, we have you surrounded. Put your hands where we can see them. Hawkeye, get out of there."

Clint releases her, and Natasha lets her head fall against the floor with a _thunk_. She takes a deep breath and inches her hands out along the floor, laying them flat. Her shoulder wound is bleeding through its stitches.

Under the wary gaze of her fellows, a SHIELD agent moves forward and cuffs Natasha’s wrists behind her back. Natasha stays still and watches Clint. His face is as blank as he can make it, which isn’t very blank. His eyes are dark and confused.

She doesn’t say, _You’re making a mistake_.

She doesn’t say, _Holy fuck, Clint, what the hell is going on_?

And she certainly doesn’t say _Phil, what happened to Phil? Why don’t you remember him?_

She says, “I think I’m compromised.”

“No shit,” says Clint. At least he’s not scowling at her anymore.

“I’m going to need a full medical check,” she says. “And Reed Richards.”

“Sure,” says Clint sourly, “and would you like fries with that? Richards is busy. Also he’s a dick. Also you’re a supervillain. Better talk fast, sweetheart, or you’ll be going away for a long time.”

Supervillain?

_Bozhe moi._

Natasha shrugs. “Suit yourselves. You might regret it.” If what she suspects is happening is happening then Richards might be the only one who can help her. Which is just great, because Clint’s right; Richards is a dick.

The SHIELD agent who’d handcuffed her – Roberts? Rodriguez? Natasha vaguely recognises the kid, but the name’s escaping her – helps her up and directs her towards the door. Natasha tries not to make any sudden moves. Clint and a small flotilla of SHIELD agents follow her through to the med bay, at which point they handcuff Natasha to a bed and let the doctors loose on her.

For the second time that day, Natasha gets a long-winded lecture from SHIELD’s medical personnel, only this time it’s less “take better care of yourself, you ridiculous ex-Soviet superhuman” and more “take better care of your morals, you ridiculous murder-happy Soviet supervillain!” She prefers the former, though the latter has more interesting swearwords.

Clint just stands in the corner and gloats. When they’re done he comes over and sits down on the plastic chair at her bedside, turning it backwards and propping his elbows up on the back of it.

Clint stares at her.

Natasha stares back.

They are at an impasse for some time.

(Phil used to call this the Staring-Each-Other-Down-Mofo Competition. He used to rate their stares with gold star stickers, and reward the winner – and then the loser, too – with kisses. Natasha tries not to think about it.)

“Concerned for my health?” she asks sweetly. She grins, and tastes blood.

“Concerned about your game plan,” says Clint. His brow is creased. “What’s your interest in Richards? You’ve never targeted the Fantastic Four before.”

Natasha doesn’t answer right away, but she doesn’t avert her gaze either. At this point it’s probably in her best interests to stay silent until she knows more about her situation. But then again... if she can’t trust Clint, who _can_ she trust? Fucking nobody, that’s who.

So. Full disclosure.

“This morning I was an Avenger,” she says. “We fought Loki, took him into custody, and came home. I went to find you at the range and suddenly I’m a supervillain. Pretty sure I’m in an alternate universe.”

Clint’s eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. “Pretty sure?”

“Eighty percent sure.”

“Huh.”

“Believe it or don’t,” she says shortly. “But I’m willing to bet your version of the Black Widow is still on the loose.” Unless, of course, supervillain-Widow is in Natasha’s own universe, and they’ve been swapped. Or it’s actually a timeline alteration and for some reason Natasha’s the only one to retain her original memories. Or this is just Loki fucking with her head. Or – a lot of things, really. Twenty percent of things.

Clint frowns at her for a long moment and then he says, “I don’t believe you.” A pause. “Not yet, anyway.”

It’s more than she’d expected but less than she’d hoped for. Still, at least he’s not just dismissing her out of hand.

A wave of exhaustion washes over her, and she presses her face into the pillow. She could suppress it, but she’s tired, and Clint’s here. It’s dangerous to fall asleep before she knows what they’re going to do to her, but Clint’s here. She’s as safe as she’s going to get.

“Don’t kill me while I’m sleeping,” she murmurs. Natasha hates hospitals. If she escapes it’ll be a show of bad faith, though, so she’s stuck here. It’s one of the very rare times where she actually prefers to be unconscious.

Clint’s got a strange expression on his face, one that she’s never seen on him before. “I make no promises.” There’s a dry note in his tone. He’s joking.

“You’re hilarious,” she replies, but it’s broken by a yawn. If anyone else were in the room she’d be horrified at herself. Displaying weakness in front of an enemy is unforgivable. But it’s Clint. It’s Clint, and even in an alternate universe, or a ruptured timeline, or whatever this is, she can’t quite bring herself to see Clint as an enemy. Maybe that’ll come back to bite her in the ass. Maybe it won’t.

Natasha closes her eyes, and drifts.

She dreams of raised voices and bitter blood and the smell of snow in the early morning. She dreams that there is a promise she has to fulfil but she can’t remember what it is. She dreams of a lover with a blurred face and long limbs. She dreams, and when she wakes again the strands of dream slip away, leaving her with a faint memory of colour and cold.

Before she opens her eyes she listens to her surroundings. She keeps her breathing steady, so as not to let on that she’s awake. Clint is still beside her. She’s pleased but not surprised. What’s surprising is the other occupants of the room; namely, Reed Richards, Stephen Strange, and Maria Hill.

“Good morning, sunshine,” says Clint, and Natasha gives up the charade and opens her eyes.

“Morning,” she says. Her voice is hoarse. “It’s not morning, is it?”

“Will be soon,” says Clint. “It’s almost midnight.”

She eyeballs Richards, gives a nod to Hill, and ignores Strange entirely. “Quite a party you’ve got here. What’s the occasion?” Stark’s rubbing off on her, which is totally horrifying. Everything is a party to him. Including that one time Thor electrocuted most of the upper floors of Avengers Tower and one of Natasha’s favourite pot plants got roasted. This is _exactly_ why she didn’t want to move into Avengers Tower in the first place. If she starts picking up Thor’s mannerisms too she’s going to move to California. At least she still has her SHIELD quarters. Or, well. She _had_ her SHIELD quarters.

Clint gestures to Richards, who is holding a beepy thing. Natasha’s spent most of her life in contact with extremely cutting-edge technology, but Richards’ toys are a whole new realm of cutting-edge and that’s about as much as she can offer. It’s a beepy thing. It goes beep. And occasionally flashes purple.

“Looks like you were telling the truth,” says Clint, looking surly. “I’m shocked and amazed. So, uh, what’s your universe like? Is there a planet made of shrimp?”

“No,” says Natasha, and Clint groans theatrically.

“More to the point,” says Hill, “how similar are our universes? Are there any potential threats we should be on the lookout for?”

“The Chitauri, Thanos, Loki, Ultron, Kang, Dr. Doom, Galactus, and the Wrecking Crew,” rattles off Natasha. “And we’re keeping an eye on Hydra.”

“We’ve fought all of those but Ultron,” says Hill. She’s wearing the Director’s insignia. Natasha wonders what happened to Fury. Maybe Fury doesn’t even exist in this universe. Or maybe he got eaten by a giant flamingo or something, hell, she doesn’t know. “Are those all the villains you’ve faced since you... became an Avenger?” Hill sounds _highly_ sceptical. Well, Natasha can’t really blame her.

“Oh, no,” she says, pasting on a wide-eyed look. “That’s just the villains we’ve fought in the last month.”

Clint snorts. “Okay, I like this one. Can we keep her?”

“You know my rule about stray supervillains,” says Hill. Clint pouts.

Natasha jangles her handcuff against the bedframe. “Any chance I can get this off, since you’ve decided I’m a virtuous citizen?”

“We’ve decided you’re not lying,” says Clint. “Who said anything about virtuous?”

Natasha raises her eyebrows. “Well, you obviously think I’m virtuous enough to try to help me.”

Richards coughs awkwardly. Strange just looks aloof. Actually, he always looks aloof. Natasha’s not sure if he’s capable of any other expressions.

“Well, yeah,” says Clint. “Assuming that _helping you_ means _getting you the hell out of our dimension._ ”

“Works for me."

“Good,” says Clint, and puffs out his chest, deepening his voice. “If... If we could somehow harness this lightning... channel it into the flux capacitor... it just might work. Next Saturday night, we're sending you back to the future!”

There’s a heavy pause.

"But I haven't time travelled," points out Natasha.

“What?” says Clint, sounding offended. “I’ve always wanted to say that. Philistine.”


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning is mostly spent hooking Natasha up to various wires and machines and then watching her very carefully to make sure nothing fries her brain. Stark and Banner come and peek in the door at one point, and Banner looks mostly the same but Stark’s got an honest-to-goodness villain moustache. It’s long and twirly and it comes out past his ears. Natasha had thought that Tony Stark’s facial hair couldn’t get more obnoxious than it already was, but it turns out she was wrong. She was so very, very wrong. When she gets back to her original universe she’s never going to insult his goatee again.

Well. _If_ she gets back to her original universe.

By the time a few hours have passed they haven’t managed to get her back to where she’s meant to be, but they have at least managed to confirm that she’s only moved realities and not timestreams. Natasha’s not entirely sure if this is a good thing. It means that she won’t end up lost in the Paleozoic Era, or on some horrifically dystopian future, but it also means that she’s wasting time. However long she’s stuck in this alternate dimension is however long Loki and co. have to wreak havoc in her original dimension.

If she comes home and Loki’s been installed as Lord High Dictator of the Planet Earth, she is _not_ going to be happy.

Clint comes in occasionally and sits with her. He’s quieter than usual, or at least he’s quieter than her Clint usually is, but it’s still nice to have him around. Not that she’d admit to that in front of him, of course.

In true Clint fashion he gets bored after a couple of hours and starts pinging bits of paperclip off various pieces of equipment. Natasha steals a paperclip from him and fashions it into a tiny little throwing-dagger-paperclip, and then they play darts with the beepy things for a while.

It’s fun, and relaxing, right up until Banner comes back into the room and throws a screaming shitfit.

“What are you doing?” Banner wails, rushing around confiscating their paperclips and then clutching them to his heaving bosom like some melodramatic fairytale maiden. “This is sensitive equipment! You could have killed yourselves! More importantly, you could have killed the _data_!”

Natasha blinks at him. “Wow, doc, you’re a little high-strung today. Did the other guy piss in your cereal or something?”

“Other guy?” says Clint. “You mean Stark?”

A weird feeling starts up in the pit of Natasha’s stomach. “Ha ha,” she says, a little uncertainly.

Banner looks confused and Clint just quirks an eyebrow at her. “Not sure I’m getting the joke,” he says, and starts eyeballing the paperclips again.

“Okay,” says Natasha. “Uh. Just so we’re straight. By the _other guy_ I mean Banner’s raging, green, gamma-irradiated alter ego, who is terribly fond of smashing things and also unexpectedly delighted by the BBC miniseries of _Pride and Prejudice_.”

Banner and Clint both turn to stare at her. Banner looks kind of boggle-eyed.

“No,” says Clint. “No, that’s a new one. May I ask, where did the Austen come into it?”

“You don’t want to know,” says Natasha. “Seriously? You don’t have the Hulk in your universe?”

“We don’t have a Hulk,” says Banner, looking pale. “Whatever a Hulk is. Man, how did that happen?”

“Experiment gone wrong,” says Natasha shortly.

“But I don’t work with gamma radiation,” says Banner, somewhat plaintively.

“You’re not a physicist?”

Banner let out a high, sharp giggle that gets stuck in his throat and turns into a gurgle halfway through. “No, uh, no, I mean it was an option, but it was never really my field. I’m a neuroscientist.”

“Right,” says Natasha. She shrugs a little. “Well, good for you, bad for the Hulk, I guess.” She’s not really sure what to think. The Hulk can be a bit of a loose cannon, sure, but he’s friendly enough in his way, and she’s grown to sort of like having him around the place.

Banner shifts awkwardly, and the light glints off the wedding band on his finger. Natasha looks at it for a moment and then says, “The name Betty Ross ring any bells?”

“No,” says Banner. “Who’s that?”

“No one,” says Natasha, and sinks back into her pillows. “Never mind.”

Clint gives her a sharp look but doesn’t say anything. Eventually Banner wanders off again, looking kind of discomfited.

There is an intensely awkward silence, and then Clint says, “So who’s Phil?”

Natasha twitches inadvertently. Trust Clint to lull her into a false sense of security and then come out with something like _that_. He’s like an alligator lurking beneath the surface of a swamp, tricking passers-by with his deceptively adorable ears and fluffy hair – or, you know, shiny alligator scales – and then lunging out to chomp on some poor antelope. Not that she's an antelope. This analogy is flawed.

This is the very last conversation she wants to have right now, but Clint is still looking at her expectantly, so she says, “It’s classified.”

Clint scoffs. “Come on, who am I gonna tell? We’re not even in your home universe, baby. The rules don’t work the same way here.”

“Drop it,” says Natasha, baring her teeth a little.

Clint bites his lip, looking unsure. “I mean – if it’s something that’s going to come up – shouldn’t I know about it?”

“It doesn’t concern you,” says Natasha, and has to look away for a moment.

He’s quiet for a second, and then he says, “Okay. Whatever. Hey, you want to go out for pizza?”

She cocks her head. “We can leave the base?”

“Don’t see why not,” says Clint.

Natasha can think of plenty of reasons, but she’s not going to voice them. The last couple of days have been miserable and she’d appreciate the chance to get out of headquarters for a while.

“Okay,” she says. “Do you have Luigi’s in your universe?”

“That place on the corner with the music shop?” asks Clint. “I’ve never been there, but sure, sounds good.”

Natasha suppresses a pang of melancholy; it had been Clint who had introduced her to Luigi’s in the first place, back when she had first moved to New York. They went there for their anniversary last year, and Phil and Clint got into an impromptu breadstick duel at the table. One of the wait staff had been reduced to tears and Natasha had laughed herself sick.

Using Natasha’s sneaky ninja powers they manage to get out of the base in about twenty minutes, borrowing one of the SHIELD cars. It’s a model that Natasha’s never seen before, and there are some weird controls on the dashboard, so Clint drives even though he’s an absolute lunatic when it comes to road rules and some things never change, even across parallel universes.

The car hums strangely, and it’s disconcerting enough that eventually Natasha asks about it.

“What?” says Clint. “Oh, that’s just the arc reactor. You don’t have arc reactors in your universe?”

Natasha raises her eyebrows. “We do, but they’re nowhere near at the level where we can start tossing them into random SHIELD vehicles.”

Clint gives her an odd look. “Lady, it’s not just SHIELD vehicles that run on these things. It’s everything. What the hell do you use for power?”

“Uh,” she says. “Electricity? Oil? Fossil fuels?”

Clint whistles between his teeth. “Dude, that’s so Dark Ages,” he says, sounding impressed. “We’ve had arc reactors since the sixties.”

“Well, so have we,” she says, a little annoyed, though she’s not sure why. “They’re just not viable yet. I mean, we’re getting there. Give us a few years. What was different here, that you had them earlier?”

Clint gives her an exasperated look and slams on the brakes at a red light. “How the hell am I supposed to know? I don’t know what your universe is like.”

“Right,” says Natasha, and stares out the window, trying to pick out Stark Tower.

The Tower’s right in the middle of Midtown, exactly where it used to be, same ugly shape as ever, but the big glowing letters on the side don’t say STARK – or, for that matter, AVENGERS. They say CARTER, and beside the name there’s a funny little logo that looks like a compass.

“Huh,” she says. “Think I know what changed here.”

“Oh yeah?” says Clint.

She shrugs. “Nothing that important, I guess.”

They get to the pizza place soon enough, and then Natasha’s forced to fight off horrible nostalgic aches while Clint sits across from her and moans into his plate. “This is so good,” he says incoherently, stuffing his face with mozzarella. “Why have I not been here before? I used to live right near here. Jesus.”

“Yeah,” says Natasha, picking at her gnocchi. “This was always your favourite.”

“Obviously Clints across all universes have amazing taste in pizza,” says Clint. He takes another mouthful, and lets out an incredibly inappropriate noise. “I can’t even – it’s like I’m having an orgasm. In my mouth.”

She can’t help but think of that time in the SHIELD bunker, just before Phil got called away, when Clint started trying out that thing with his – Natasha is not going to blush. She is not going to blush. She is a SHIELD agent and a master-class superspy who is more than capable of concealing her emotions from an alternate version of one of the recently bereaved loves of her life. She is _not_ going to blush.

She’s blushing.

For _fuck’s_ sake.

Luckily Clint’s as oblivious as ever, more occupied with eating every foodstuff in sight than with inspecting her face for odd reactions, so she manages to tamp down the blush before he notices. This is ridiculous. She’s not even this open around her own Clint, let alone this weird, scar-faced alternate version.

Okay, that was a lie. Clint and Phil are – _were_ the only people in the whole world that have – had ever been able to see through her. She’s not used to hiding herself around them anymore. It’s understandable that she’d slip occasionally.

Understandable, but not acceptable.

Natasha lets Clint finish his meal in silence and then she stands up abruptly, leaving without waiting to get the bill. Clint catches up to her outside, looking perplexed, but he doesn’t say anything about it. He drives her back to HQ and still doesn’t ask her about it and she’s disgustingly grateful.

She’s glad that this universe doesn’t have a Phil. It sounds horrible, but she’s glad. If she’s this out of control even around Clint... No, it’s good. It’s a good thing that there’s no Phil here. She doesn’t want to know if she’d be able to handle it.

Really, she doesn’t.

Okay, maybe a little bit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: some violence.

The tests continue. Nothing is achieved. Even pooling the combined ridiculous ingenuity of Banner, Stark and Richards, nobody seems to be able to figure out how the hell Natasha slipped into another universe, or how the hell to put her back.

Richards explains it to her over and over, until Natasha feels like her brain's about to melt out of her skull, using complicated field-specific jargon that she only barely manages to grasp. She tries to keep herself updated but at the end of the day she’s a superspy and an Avenger, not a physicist, and Richards doesn’t really talk to non-scientist types that often.

Stark puts it a little more simply. "You have to go back through the same door you came," he says. "If you came in through the front door, you have to go back in through the front door. Or a window, or an air vent, or, hell, a cat flap. Whatever. If you'd come here using one of Reed's machines, we'd have been able to zoom you right back where you came from. But you got here via magic, and nobody here is magical."

Which is a fat lot of good to Natasha, of course.

Stephen Strange has been called away on some mumbo jumbo astral plane quest, and none of the magical mutant types here are in contact with SHIELD. They’ve dealt with Loki before, but only briefly; for whatever reason, this version of Loki decided not to stick around, so SHIELD’s scientists have very little experience with sparkly magic crap.

Natasha can’t figure out Loki’s game plan. If he was close enough to curse her with some kind of universe-swapping spell, he was probably close enough to kill her. If he just wanted to get her out of the way he could have had her quietly murdered, or put into a coma, or locked into a cell at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He didn’t need to go to all the trouble of transporting her to another dimension. The supervillain version of the Black Widow hasn’t gone anywhere, so it’s not that Loki wanted to swap Natasha for her Darkest Timeline counterpart.

No, this is something else.

Something more complex.

She’ll figure it out sooner or later, and until then she busies herself with tests, and more tests, and awkward lunches with Clint in the mess hall, and hours spent in the shooting range until her fingers are raw and her eyesight is blurry with fatigue. Natasha doesn’t quite know what to do with herself here, in this odd universe where she’s some superfluous extra piece on a gameboard that’s already full.

On her eighth day in a parallel dimension, Natasha decides to drag Clint to the gym and release her frustrations with some good old-fashioned sparring. Clint, of course, complains vociferously about this, and has to be coerced and cajoled into agreeing. Natasha drags him through the corridors with her shoulder twinging and her ears deaf to his protests.

“You know, I’m not so sure you’re not a supervillain after all,” says Clint, tugging his wrist out of her grasp. “This feels like supervillain behaviour to me.”

Natasha rolls her eyes, and behind her Clint goes suddenly quiet.

She turns around. “Clint, you’re not getting out of this by escaping through the air vents, don’t think I don’t know your tricks –”

She pauses.

Clint isn’t behind her, but it’s not because he ducked into an air vent. The vents haven’t been tampered with. It’s like he just disappeared into thin air, but she knows he hasn’t.

The paint on the ceiling is peeling where it wasn’t before, and there’s a bad taste in Natasha’s mouth. Her shoulder throbs wildly and she presses a hand to it.

She can guess what’s happened.

She’s walked across universes again.

Hope swells up within her. This all seem too easy, but is it possible that she’s back in her own universe? Even if the SHIELD scientists on her end were at a loss, who’s to say that the SHIELD scientists in her own universe didn’t figure out a way to bring her back?

Natasha’s not familiar enough with every inch of the Helicarrier to be able to say whether this is her own universe or not. She’ll have to find someone who lives here, someone who _knows_. She starts to run through the corridors, aiming for the nearest populated area. She’s close to the gym. There are always people in the gym, even if she doesn’t run into anyone in the corridors, or at a maintenance point.

She could be home again, she could be with _her_ Clint, everything fixed, no missing puzzle pieces, no Tony Starks with villain moustaches. She’s sprinting, now, bare feet thudding soundlessly against the hard floors, hair whipping behind her, and then an all-too-familiar voice calls out her name.

“Natasha!”

She turns around, heart turning to ice in her chest.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” says Loki, jogging a little to catch up with her. He’s beaming, sweetly, with every appearance of sincerity. “I was wondering if you wanted to grab lunch. Sushi, maybe.”

He’s wearing standard SHIELD gear and his hair is shorn into a neat buzz-cut. Without the hair he looks strangely naked, strangely vulnerable. His smile falters as she stares at him without responding.

“Natasha?” ventures Loki, and Natasha kicks him right in the solar plexus.

He staggers backwards, wheezing in shock, eyes wide and betrayed.

“What are you doing?” he asks. Natasha expects him to continue the con, to sound wheedling, plaintive, but he only sounds curious. “Have I upset you? We don’t have to get sushi.”

Natasha doesn’t answer him. Instead she flips over and wraps her thighs around Loki’s neck, using her forward momentum to bring him down to the ground with her. Loki makes no move to fight against her, and it takes her less than a second to get him in a position where she could break his neck with one twist of her arm.

“No sushi, then, I gather,” says Loki. His voice is muffled because Natasha has her elbow stuffed into his mouth. If he bit down, he could shatter the bone, but not before she could drive her arm into his skull with enough force to give him an intracranial haemorrhage.

“You’re a Norse god,” says Natasha, exasperated. “When did you even get the time to learn what sushi is?”

Loki’s expression clears. “Oh,” he says. “You’re not _my_ Natasha. Where did you come from, I wonder?”

There’s a cold feeling in Natasha’s stomach. This could be a trick, but Loki’s not the subtlest cupcake around. Natasha was born and raised a spy, and she lives and breathes lies, and she knows how to tell when Loki is lying to her. She can’t always tell what he’s lying _about_ , but she can tell when a lie exists, and for a creature that claims the title God of Lies and Mischief there’s a surprising amount of the latter and not a lot of the former where Loki is concerned.

“I’m not home, am I,” says Natasha wearily. She doesn’t let up her hold on Loki, and he doesn’t move to escape it. “Let me guess, you’re an Avenger or something totally ridiculous.”

“I’m a Secret Avenger,” says Loki. “Yes.”

Natasha doesn’t really want to know, but she doesn’t want to not know, so she asks. “Secret Avenger?”

“Black-ops sect,” says Loki. “Don’t blame me, Rogers came up with the name. I would have called us something far less gauche.”

“ _Gauche_ ,” repeats Natasha, like the word is something filthy.

“Don’t look so horrified,” says Loki, amused. “You’re a Secret Avenger too.”

“Thor’s not around?”

Loki freezes, and then breaks her hold like it’s nothing, flipping her over and staring down into her face. His eyes are dark and intent upon hers. “How do you know that name?” he whispers.

Natasha knees him in the groin and he topples over sideways.

“None of your business,” she says. “And I’d like to see your Director, now, whoever that is.”

“It’s Fury,” says Loki, relaxing from his protective curl. “I’ll take you to him, if you promise to teach me that move the next time we spar.”

“I don’t spar with people like you,” says Natasha.

“Yes you do,” says Loki, lips turning upwards. He looks oddly delighted, as if he has found a new toy, a new insect to crush beneath his magnifying glass. “Sometimes I feel we do nothing _but_ spar. Oh, but this is marvellous.”

“Take me to Fury,” says Natasha. “And stop talking.”

Loki doesn’t stop talking. After a while she starts to tune it out.

Fury is in his office above the main deck, and he has both of his eyes, and he looks tired and sad.

“Loki,” he acknowledges. “Romanova. What is it this time?”

“Greetings, Director Fury,” says Loki smoothly, eyes sparking with some kind of excitement. “Allow me to introduce you to Natasha Romanova, known as the Black Widow.”

Fury rubs his temples. “Loki, Romanova is an asset of SHIELD. Believe it or not, I have met her before. Get to the point.”

“That is the point,” says Loki. “This isn’t the Romanova that you know. She’s from an alternate dimension, and I think I sent her here.”

Natasha waves, feebly.

Fury lets out a sigh, long and low, and then he turns his gaze to the ceiling. “One day off,” he murmurs. “I would really, dearly, love _one day_ off the ridiculous shitshow that is my job.”

“No you don’t,” says Loki. “You love it.”

Fury directs a narrow-eyed glare at him. Natasha can’t stop staring at his face. He’s been one-eyed for as long as she’s known him, and with the extra eye his face looks strange, lopsided, too symmetrical.

“Let me guess,” says Fury. “Neither of you have called in the _real_ Romanova yet.”

“Don’t be daft,” says Loki, waving a hand at him dismissively. He piles into the chair opposite Fury’s desk, melting into it like a cat that’s found a new perch. “We don’t know what that could do. She hasn’t time-travelled, so the paradox of two Romanovas meeting won’t rip a hole in the fabric of time and space, but it might rip a hole in the fabric of the Helicarrier. Magic spells. Very complicated. Could do anything.”

“You’re lying,” says Natasha.

“Yes, I am,” says Loki cheerfully. “If you meet your alternate self it shouldn’t have any ill effect at all, except, perhaps, on the sanity of our dear Director. I thought to spare him.”

Fury buries his head in his hands.

“Okay,” says Natasha. Natasha has had enough of this bullshit. “Your version of Natasha Romanova is an agent of SHIELD, right?”

Fury nods, without removing his hands from his face.

“Not a double agent?” presses Natasha.

Fury shakes his head.

“No dark little secrets lurking in her closet?”

Loki smirks a little.

Fury finally drops his hands. “Do I want to know where you’re going with this?”

“Bring her in,” says Natasha decisively. “I want to meet her.”


	5. Chapter 5

Natasha hadn’t exactly known what to expect, but she certainly hadn’t expected this.

The eeriest thing is that the other Natasha – the other Black Widow – is _different_. She’d thought that they’d be exactly alike. She’s encountered clones of herself before. An identical Natasha standing before her, mimicking her every movement, would not have discomfited her in the slightest.

But Natasha Two is not identical in any way. Oh, there are surface differences. Natasha had expected surface differences. Natasha Two has shorter hair, buzzed close at the back, flopping over her eyes at the front. Along with Loki’s SHIELD-ordained buzzcut, Natasha’s starting to think of this ‘verse as the Haircut Dimension.

At least Natasha Two doesn’t have an evil villain moustache.

Small mercies.

The strangest thing isn’t the hair. Natasha Two carries herself differently, more easily, less wary of her surroundings. That might get her killed one day. Her eyes are – lighter. There is no dark soul staring out of those eyes.

It’s bizarre and off-putting and Natasha doesn’t like it at all.

And then Natasha Two squints at her and says, “You are one _fucked up_ lady.”

Natasha blinks.

“Darling,” scolds Loki, lifting a hand to his mouth, half in outrage and half in poorly-concealed delight. “ _Rude_.”

Natasha looks from Natasha Two to Loki and back to Natasha Two. There’s a sickeningly adorable curl to Natasha Two’s mouth and Loki returns it, mooning after her like Thor mooning after poptarts.

“Oh hell no,” says Natasha, before she can help herself. “You’re _dating_?”

“We’re married,” corrects Loki. There’s a horrible pause, and then he bursts out laughing. “We’re not really. I just wanted to see your expression.”

Natasha’s expression must be truly impressive, because Natasha Two has to stifle a snort. Fury, on the other hand, looks like he ate something bad for breakfast and it’s trying to come back up. Natasha has no sympathy for him. This mess is his own damn fault for making Loki – Loki, of all people! – an Avenger, Secret or not.

“Tell me,” she grits out, glaring at Natasha Two, “are you actually insane, or is he just mind-controlling you?”

Natasha Two hops up onto Fury’s desk, crossing one leg over the other. “None of the above?” she suggests. “I believe the Loki you know is quite different to my Loki. This one is… not a villain.”

“Loki is Loki,” says Natasha. She thinks about adding another _is Loki_ , for effect, but decides it would be overkill. “He’s a frost giant. His family lied to him his whole life and fucked him up in all sorts of ways and he tried to destroy a planet and take over Earth. What part of that screams _emotional stability_?”

Loki raises his hand. “Uh, frost giant is considered a pejorative term,” he interjects. “Also, none of that happened.”

“And I’m not looking for stability,” adds Natasha Two. “Totally overrated.”

Natasha won’t admit it but she’s a little… not befuddled. Befuddled is the wrong word. Mildly wrong-footed. “How’d he end up here, then?”

“It’s a long story,” hedges Loki.

“His brother was murdered, Asgard went to war with Jotunheim, Loki’s dad revealed his parentage and Loki left Asgard in a huff and came here,” says Natasha Two.

“At which point we offered him refuge,” says Fury. “And diplomatic immunity. And a place on a top-secret super-powered strike force.”

“Well,” says Loki. “Perhaps not such a long story after all.”

“Why here?” asks Natasha. “What’s so great about Earth?”

Loki looks very thoughtful for a moment. “Toasters,” he says at last. “Toasters are pretty great. Tiny domesticated wildcats that don’t eat you. Twitter. Chevy Camaros. Porn. I could go on.”

“Please don’t,” says Fury.

“What I’m trying to say,” says Loki, “is that I admire the… ingenuity of the human race. All the other realms are just so _boring_.”

“Typical,” says Natasha. She passes a hand over her eyes. “You know what. Just. Fuck. I don’t even care. Can you get me out of here?”

Loki glances around theatrically, and then raises his eyebrows at her. “Get you out of the Helicarrier?” he says. They’re currently several thousand feet over the Atlantic. “That might prove unwise.”

“Get me out of this universe,” she corrects. “I want to go home. You did this, you can fix it.”

“It’s not that simple,” says Loki.

“Make it that simple,” says Natasha.

He scowls at her. “Believe it or not, I’m not in the habit of sending people across dimensions for… no apparent reason. I didn’t cast the spell that sent you here, my counterpart did. I don’t even know any dimension-travelling spells. I might be able to figure out something that will help you, but it’ll take time.”

Natasha spreads her hands. “I’ve got time.” Until she walks into yet another universe, anyway. She’s got no clue as to how long she’ll be here. It could be forever – or at least the foreseeable future – or it could be mere days. Hours.

Minutes.

“Okay,” says Loki. “But if I accidentally turn you into either a) a watermelon b) a deity or c) a slightly more homicidal version of yourself, I will bear no guilt.”

“Deal,” says Natasha.

“What?” says Fury. “No. This man is a highly prized asset working on a number of skill-specific ops. He doesn’t have time to be taking on new projects willy-nilly –”

“Director Fury,” reproaches Loki, wide-eyed and woebegone. “I need something to keep me from being _bored_. Do you not remember the time in the mess hall when I transformed the floor into molten lava and all the tables into tiny hapless islands of floating obsidian and all the agents started forming alliances and stabbing each other in the back trying to lay claim to the obsidian and make their way to the exits?”

Natasha’s pretty sure he said all that without taking a single breath.

Fury seems kind of zoned out, like he’s reliving a horrible memory he’d tried desperately to repress. “Yes,” he says eventually. “Yes, I do remember that. Take all the side-projects you want.”

Natasha cocks an eyebrow at Natasha Two. “And you say he’s a hero?”

“I never said that,” says Natasha Two. “I said he wasn’t a villain.”

Loki smirks.


	6. Chapter 6

Natasha Two and Loki have a particular way of looking at each other, as if they are each the most fascinating, beautiful, terrible thing in the world. They touch each other casually, unthinkingly, knuckles brushing against elbows, ankles bumping beneath conference tables. Natasha Two’s voice goes low and rumbly when she says Loki’s name, and Loki gets a particular curl to his narrow mouth when Natasha Two glances in his direction. Natasha finds it deeply unsettling. 

Things were never that way with her and Phil and Clint. They were never that way with her and James, or Yelena, or Alexei, or any of her other lovers. Natasha guards her heart closely and she does not let it out for all to see. She may allow her lovers some glimpse of her secret self, but she would never betray her feelings to her colleagues, to random passers-by, to alternate versions of herself popping in from other dimensions. She cannot fathom how Natasha Two managed to grow into such an unguarded being. How could she be so open, and yet still be the Black Widow? 

“Hold this, please,” says Loki. 

Natasha eyes him warily and then acquiesces, accepting the small piece of chipped obsidian and holding it gingerly in the palm of her hand. “What purpose does this serve, exactly?” 

“Shh,” says Loki, and stares intently at the stone. Nothing happens, but a moment later his eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline and he says, “Interesting.” 

“What’s interesting?” demands Natasha. 

“Shh,” says Loki, more abruptly than before. He snatches the obsidian out of her grasp and waves it around a bit, chanting something in a garbled language that Natasha doesn’t recognise any part of. (And that’s saying something. Natasha is fluent in too many languages to count – a legacy of the Red Room – and she has a rudimentary grasp of most others, at least enough to recognise them when they are spoken.) 

Natasha directs her glare towards the corner, where Natasha Two is swinging around in a battered office chair and looking entirely too amused. “Is he always like this?” 

“Yes,” says Natasha Two. She gives Loki a besotted look. Natasha can’t tell if she’s putting it on to be irritating, or if it’s genuine. She doesn’t know which option is more disturbing. “Yes, he’s like this always.” 

Natasha grits her teeth and works on cutting down the glare, until her face is nothing but an icy mask, betraying nothing of the roiling sea beneath. “How long is this going to take?” she asks, voice perfectly flat. 

“Difficult to say,” says Loki, chewing on his lip. 

“That’s funny, coming from you,” says Natasha, narrowing her eyes. “ _Silvertongue_.” 

Loki looks a little cowed, and Natasha Two looks a little impressed. She tries to hide it, but she’s not good enough; it shows in the crinkles around her eyes. Natasha fights the urge to school her. The lack of control could be her undoing one day, but it’s not Natasha’s job to turn Natasha Two into another fucked-up chameleon like herself. Maybe Natasha Two’s vulnerability is a blessing. Maybe she is happier this way. 

“Well,” says Loki, and coughs. He looks down at the obsidian, and then tosses it over his shoulder. It hits the wall with a sad little clang. “The thing is, you see, this spell is much more complicated than I had anticipated. I had thought it to be a slapdash thing, perhaps intended for someone other than yourself, or drawn up in the heat of the moment. In fact it seems that my alternate self worked on this enchantment for some time.” 

Natasha is unsettled but she doesn’t show it. “And what does that tell you?” 

He shrugs. “I really don’t know. Are you _sure_ you weren’t dating my alternate self?” 

Natasha suppresses a shudder. “Very sure.” 

Loki frowns. Natasha Two darts in and presses a little kiss to the crease between his brows. His face softens and Natasha looks away. 

“Well!” he says, and claps his hands together. “It seems that there is nothing to be done for now. We should break for dinner. Other-Natasha, would you care to join us?” 

“Join you for dinner?” says Natasha. “Should we take bets on who will poison the other first?” 

“Nonsense,” says Loki happily. “Of course _my_ Natasha would win that bet; she is the wiliest of us all. But in all sincerity I have nothing left to do while my spells… percolate. Join us if you would like to, do not join us if you would not.” 

It’s a bad idea but Natasha will admit that she is curious. “Fine,” she says. 

Loki chatters happily all the way to the mess hall, and it is only as they reach the doors that Natasha thinks to ask who they will find there. “Who else is part of the Avengers Initiative here?” she asks, staying Loki’s wrist just as he goes to open the door. 

“There are the Avengers, and then there are the Secret Avengers,” says Loki quietly. “There are more of the former than of the latter. Maria Hill leads the Avengers – Hawkeye, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Wolverine, Rescue, and the Hulk – and Steve Rogers leads the Secret Avengers, whose identities I may not disclose.” 

Natasha looks at him for a long moment and then removes her hand, allowing him to open the door. She doesn’t recognise all of those names; perhaps they belong to heroes who do not exist in her universe, or heroes who have yet to appear, or who have chosen different names. 

The mess hall, at least, is how she remembers it: a bustling mess of SHIELD agents, waitstaff and the occasional brightly-clad hero. The lights overhead are harsh and fluorescent, and the sizzling smell of some unidentifiable meat pervades the room. Loki and Natasha Two go immediately to the buffet line, where Loki grabs a couple of trays and then wiggles his fingers, presumably casting some kind of food-gathering spell, because a moment later food pops out of existence in the buffet and pops back into existence on Loki’s tray. Natasha follows after them somewhat hesitantly, gathering up her food the old-fashioned way, and then joining them at a table with a couple of other agents. 

Nobody is staring at her, which in Natasha’s opinion is an awful lapse on the part of the various SHIELD agents in the room. A tiny part of her wants to leap onto a table and shout _CONSTANT VIGILANCE_! 

The other agents at the table nod to her as she sits down, and Loki immediately launches into some horrifying tale about his childhood on Asgard, involving gigantic weasel monsters and goblins and accidental magic and goodness knows what else. Natasha does her best to ignore him, and instead turns her attention to the strangers sitting across from her. 

One of them she recognises, if only from surveillance footage: Peter Parker, otherwise known as Spider-Man. He looks younger in person, all gawky limbs and scruffy brown hair and hipster glasses. The woman beside him is entirely unfamiliar, though she and Parker seem fairly close. She’s wearing a red cashmere sweater, and she keeps reaching up to push her long black hair out of her eyes. The other woman at the table seems familiar, but Natasha can’t place her at first. She has short ginger hair cropped close around her ears, and a large scar rippling down from her eyebrow to curl around her mouth. She’s not wearing the standard SHIELD uniform, and is instead clad in something that resembles a wetsuit, with circuits wrapping around her limbs in tiny, glittering patterns. If memory serves, it’s very similar to the clothing that Stark wears beneath the Iron Man suit. 

The ginger-haired woman turns to reply to something that Loki has said, and Natasha is struck by a sudden, breathtaking rush of familiarity. She narrows her eyes. 

“Oh,” says Natasha Two suddenly. “How remiss of me. Other-Natasha, this is Peter, Jessica, and Virginia. Everyone, this is a badass version of me from another dimension.” 

“Hi,” says Parker, giving her an awkward little wave. 

“Virginia,” repeats Natasha, looking at the ginger-haired woman. She can see it now. “Virginia Potts?” 

Potts raises an eyebrow, pulling the scar taut across her face. “AKA Rescue,” she says dryly. “I see my fame precedes me?” 

Natasha shrugs. “I know you, in my universe,” she says. “But people call you Pepper there. And you’re not a superhero – you’re the CEO of Stark Industries.” 

Potts’ face darkens immediately. “Well,” she says mildly. “Isn’t that interesting.” She doesn’t offer anything more, and Natasha doesn’t try to pursue the conversation. 

“Sooo _ooo_ ,” says Loki, drawing the word out, kind of sing-song. “Who else do you know from your universe? Any embarrassing alternate-dimension stories to tell?” 

“It’s not blackmail if they’ve never done it in your universe,” points out Natasha. 

Loki rolls his eyes theatrically. “If I wanted blackmail I could get it like _that_ ,” he says, snapping his fingers. “I want a good story.” 

Natasha stares down at her plate and suddenly doesn’t feel hungry at all. “Parker’s in our universe but I don’t know him personally,” she says. “I know Fury. Hill. Rogers. Banner. A few of the agents here. And… I know Barton.” She won’t mention Stark. From Potts’ expression, it wouldn’t go down well. No one’s mentioned him yet, so it’s possible that in this dimension Tony Stark is retired, or dead, or worse. 

“Banner?” says Loki, brow wrinkling. “You don’t mean Bruce Banner?” 

“You said you had the Hulk here,” says Natasha, glancing around at the suddenly-quiet table. “Is it a different Hulk?” 

“No,” says Natasha Two, voice sombre. “It’s the same Hulk.” 

“Banner cut a deal,” explains Loki. “Hulk gets to be in charge of the body, so long as he devotes his time and energy towards superhero-ing rather than rampaging madly through capital cities. None of us have met Banner.” 

Natasha’s stomach squirms a little.  In her universe Banner and Hulk share hero duties. Banner’s science is just as important as Hulk’s smashing. And the Hulk is… oddly sweet. They’ve got to a point where they can live together in relative peace, without trying to control or destroy the other’s consciousness. 

“That’s… different,” she says carefully. 

Loki taps his fingers against the table and frowns. “It doesn’t make sense,” he says. “The changes aren’t consistent. You said the last universe you visited was very similar to your own, apart from one or two divergent points… I don’t know what my other self was trying to teach you.” 

“ _Teach_ me?” says Natasha. “Who says he was trying to teach me anything? Maybe he just wanted to piss me off.” 

Loki’s shaking his head. “That’s not how I work. Mischief without purpose is… boring. Shallow. I always have some kind of end game in mind, some kind of lesson, often a backhanded one. I just can’t figure out what my other self was trying to achieve here.” 

“That’s… that’s really great,” says Natasha wearily. “Really, it’s superb. You know what, next time I’m just going to ask him to write it out in big letters for me. Simpler for everyone involved.” 

Natasha Two grins. “When has my Loki ever done anything _simple_?” 

And then they’re back to making gooey eyes at each other. 

Ugh.


	7. Chapter 7

Natasha knows from unpleasant experience that sleep is a weakness. Sleep makes you vulnerable; in sleep you are prone to be crept up on, prone to nightmares, prone to your body. Most bodies are traitorous, bizarre, unyielding. Natasha's body is a weapon honed to perfection. She has trained herself to sleep only when necessary, in tiny fragments here and there, the bare minimum needed to keep her body - the weapon - at optimum performance. Thanks to the gifts of the Red Room, she only needs about four hours a night, which she usually splits into irregular segments at irregular, unpredictable times. Routines are dangerous. If an enemy can predict your routine, you are dead.

Natasha isn't dead yet. But not for lack of trying.

Tonight she wakes all in a rush, moonlight on her eyelids, and there is someone else in the room. She does not open her eyes, does not change her breathing. Sleep makes you weak, but weakness can be used to your advantage. If an enemy thinks that you are vulnerable, they will not expect you to stab them in the gut.

A tiny shift of fabric, a change in the light. Natasha's midnight stalker is walking towards her. She tenses, ready to move, ready to swing her arm out and hit their neck _just so_ -

"You needn't pretend that you're still sleeping," says a dry voice. Her own voice. "I know your tells."

Natasha sits up and glares. Natasha Two only gives her an insouciant smile.

"You're rusty," says Natasha. "I knew you were there."

Natasha Two shrugs. "I'm not rusty," she says. "I was never that stealthy." A pause. "You should come to the lab. Loki's got something he thinks you'll want to see."

Natasha feels hope swell within her breast, and brutally suppresses it. "He's figured out how to get me back home?"

Natasha Two's eyes gleam softly in the darkness. "More or less," she says.

Natasha hops out of bed and pulls her shoes on. Technically they're Natasha Two's shoes; Natasha had been barefoot when this whole thing started, and she's been barefoot since. She's been sleeping in her uniform. Usually she sleeps naked, but that's an unacceptable risk when she could be dragged off to a parallel dimension at any time. Still, laundry is going to be a problem at some point.

"Do you love him?" she asks, as they walk through the corridor. The halls are dark, silent, lit only by the dim emergency and exit lights.

"Love is a risk."

"You didn't answer my question."

Natasha Two grins, wide and sharp, like a tiger. "Yes," she says. "I love him very much."

"Does he love you?"

"Does it matter?"

They walk in silence for a while until they reach the lab, which is brightly lit and blaring with some awful mess of bagpipes and brass instruments. Natasha blinks and feels her night vision leave her.

Loki turns to look at them and for a moment he doesn't say anything, he just looks wistful. "Look at the both of you," he says, voice full of wonder. "You know, I had a dream like this once."

"A sexy dream?" asks Natasha Two.

"Yes," he says, as if it is patently obvious. "Well, at first. Then Rescue got involved, and there were some rather large hedgehogs, and there was something very important that the Norns had to tell me... In fact it was all quite strange."

Natasha Two elbows him and he yelps, high-pitched. "Okay," he says, sounding wounded. "Back to business. Alternate-Natasha, I know why you're here."

"I don't care why I'm here," she replies. "I only care about getting home. Can you help me or not?"

Loki gives her an impatient look. "They're the same problem," he says. "Same problem, same solution. Your Loki sent you here for a reason - so that you could learn something, something that would benefit him in some way. Or benefit you. If you resolve that then you'll unlock the key to getting home. It's all very quantum."

"Believe me," says Natasha dryly, "the Loki in my universe isn't at all interested in benefiting me." Her shoulder twinges a little, and she doesn't wince.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," says Loki. He fixes her with a grave look. "Now, the important question here is... Who is Phil?"

Natasha goes cold. "What?"

"He's the key," says Loki, watching her expression. "Phil Coulson. I don't know who he is, but _you_ do, don't you?"

"It's none of your business," she snaps.

"It's every bit my business, if you would only..." He stops abruptly, expression changing. "Natasha!" he says urgently. "Natasha, _do not move - "_

His face is warped, suddenly ugly, and he lunges towards her, and Natasha takes a step backwards in self defence - 

\- and the world changes around her, the Helicarrier melting away into nothing. She gasps for air and doesn't find it; suddenly everything is hot and red and dusty, and the sky is black and endless. They had been hovering over Virginia a moment ago, and now she doesn't recognise her surroundings at all... except that there is something eerily familiar, something that whispers at the back of her mind.

The air tastes awful, and leaves her wheezing with every breath. Her feet are bare and covered in dust. She could yell for help but there isn't a single human structure in sight, not beyond the whirling dust clouds. There is dust everywhere the eye can see, dust beneath her, dust around her.

The last two universe-hops had been unnoticeable, placing her in the exact mirror of the place that she had left. This place is alien, awful, though she can't help but feel that she is missing something. She takes a step forward, and another step. Nothing happens. She is still here, and she is alone. She begins to run, and run, running for so long that she loses count of time; it could have been minutes or hours, until finally she trips over something and just barely remembers how to fall, landing on her shoulder and rolling out of harm's way.

She fumbles for the thing that had tripped her. It's a rock, covered in red dust. She brushes the dust away and sneezes, holding her hand to her mouth, breathing through the fabric of her sleeve. Her shoulder aches horribly, and she doesn't know whether it's from the fall or from her old injury.

The rock is a gravestone.

It reads:

> PHILIP COULSON
> 
> MEMBER OF THE FIRST WAVE

> KILLED IN COMBAT TAKING WITH HIM 98 ENEMY SOLDIERS
> 
> WE SHALL REMEMBER HIM

Natasha rears backwards, falling on her ass. It's undignified, and she doesn't care. Phil was buried at Arlington. She was there for the ceremony. She doesn't understand what's going on.

The dust clears, then, just for a moment, just long enough for Natasha to get a glimpse of what lies before her. It's a massive burial mound, at least as tall as Stark Tower. Beyond it is a wasteland.

She takes a breath of foul air, stands up, and takes a step.

The world melts around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this story, and I do intend to finish it, but it'll be slow going. If you're patient enough to stick with me, hopefully I'll manage to finish this before we all die of old age.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here be spoilers for Iron Man 3. Skip this chapter and the next if you'd rather stay spoiler-free.

She falls to her knees and hits cold metal. 

There is grit in her eyes and her throat feels raw and awful. The sandstorm is gone. The graves are gone. There is nothing but Natasha and cool air and cold metal, and she slumps against the wall beside her and starts to cough. Sharp, hacking sounds tear out of her throat, and she spits blood into her hands, and she doesn't care. Her body will live. Natasha will live. Nothing else matters. She doesn't want to think about the things that she has seen.

After a while the coughing dies down, and her sight is clear enough to figure out where she is. Cold metal, cool air. She's in an elevator in the Helicarrier.

Phil and Natasha used to steal kisses in this elevator, and Clint would make a game of interrupting them and then joining them. Stolen elevator kisses. The memory is soft and weak, and Natasha can barely believe that she used to do that. None of her other relationships have ever been so sweet, so simple. Nobody has ever done anything for her without wanting something in return, except for her boys.

Perhaps it is good that things have turned out this way.

Love is a weakness.

Natasha heaves herself up, feeling exhausted right down to her bones. She doesn't know what this universe will hold for her; isn't sure she wants to know. Maybe this time she'll get lucky and it will be full of total strangers and she won't have to deal with any unnecessarily emotional confrontations.

With a quiet _ding_ , the elevator door slides open.

No such luck.

Natasha closes her eyes and then opens them and looks at Pepper, and Pepper looks at Natasha, and Natasha looks back. The moment stretches out between them and neither of them say anything. 

There is something different in Pepper's eyes. She looks like a predator, like a hungry beast. There aren't any visible scars like Rescue had, but Natasha thinks that this Pepper has scars on the inside.

"Hello, Natalie," says Pepper finally.

Natalie, Natasha, Natashenka. Natasha goes by many names and many guises, has learnt to be invisible, has learnt not to mind, but this time something makes her say, "Natasha."

Pepper dips her head a little, without breaking gaze. The is something golden and very patient within those eyes, like the eyes of a leopard waiting to strike. "Okay then. I thought you were in assignment in Portland."

Natasha shrugs.

"Is there a reason you're back?" asks Pepper carefully.

"Personal leave," she says, and smiles humourlessly. It's true, sort of.

"I didn't know you had a personal life."

"I don't," says Natasha. "Anymore."

Pepper rolls her shoulders, liquidly, and something in her posture finally relaxes. "Okay then," she says. "Coffee?"

Natasha hasn't had a chance to assess this universe yet. She doesn't know what it's like, who it's populated by, possible threats, possible allies. She should go to Fury, or whoever the Director of SHIELD is this time around. She should go to Loki, or Stephen Strange, or Reed Richards. She should decline politely and leave, right now, because time is running out. Any moment now she could be back in that dusty world feeling corpses wither beneath her feet. The next universe could be filled with poisonous gases, or murderous aliens, it could be flooded, it could be burning. The next universe could kill her. She needs to take advantage of her relative safety while she still can.

"Coffee sounds good," she says.

Pepper takes her to a cosy little cafe a few blocks away from Stark Tower, not too swanky, but not too public. The newspapers on the table blare scathing headlines and Natasha can't help but be curious. MANDARIN: HOAX REVEALED, says one. TONY STARK: HUMAN OR MACHINE? asks another, plaintively. The one that really catches her interest is hidden on the bottom of the pile. PEPPER POTTS' MONSTROUS TRANSFORMATION: EXCLUSIVE INSIDE SCOOP... It cuts off there, hidden by another trashy tabloid.

"How's Tony doing?" asks Natasha innocently, sipping at her large mocha. It hits her tongue sharply, oddly sweet. It has been too long since she had sweet things.

"He's gone back to California for a couple of days," says Pepper, gaze going distant. "I'm not sure I'm ready yet, to be honest. The Tower refurbishments are set to finish this week. I think I'll stay in New York for a while."

"How are _you_ doing?"

Pepper doesn't answer.

There are creases around her eyes that weren't there before, a fluidity to her movements, a dangerous grace that she didn't have the last time Natasha saw her - or at least, that she didn't have the last time Natasha saw her in her own universe. Who knows what could have changed here?

"How are you doing?" asks Natasha again, more gently this time.

"I don't know," says Pepper at last.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," she says frankly, and fixes Natasha with a hot gaze. Her left hand is curled around the handle of her coffee cup, and her knuckles are perfectly formed, fingers slender, nails filed down and unpolished. Natasha shivers involuntarily, something pleasant forming beneath her breastbone.

"What do you want to talk about, then?" she asks, voice slightly lower than she meant it to be. She clears her throat, embarrassed.

Pepper looks amused. "How about we talk about you?" she suggests. 

"Okay," says Natasha, and then, wildly, "I am Romanova from a different universe. The Black Widow you have here is probably still in Portland. I am grieving and falling apart, falling between universes. I am out of control and I don't know how to stop. You are beautiful and this coffee tastes strange."

Pepper sits back in her seat, unfazed. Natasha presses a hand over her mouth.

"Truth serum in the coffee," says Pepper unapologetically. "Sorry. Just wanted to make sure you were genuine this time."

"Okay," says Natasha, and again, "okay."

"Is it?" asks Pepper, something fierce in her gaze.

"No," says Natasha. "But it will be soon, maybe."

Pepper stretches like a cat, all languid grace. "Want to come back to the Tower?"

"Can you help me get home?"

"Probably not. But I could help you with... something else," she says, and dips her finger in the froth of her coffee, daintily sucking it off.

There is a long moment of silence, and then, slowly, Natasha nods.

Fire swirls behind Pepper's eyes, and she leans towards her across the table, inexorably slow, giving Natasha enough time to move away if she wants to. She doesn't. Pepper kisses her almost angrily, biting into Natasha's lips, tasting like bitter coffee and old hope. Natasha winds her hands into her hair, stroking the soft skin at the back of her neck, drowning in her. Pepper's skin burns beneath her hands and Natasha is lost.

This is a world away from stolen elevator kisses. It's not what Natasha needs, but it's exactly what she wants.

They separate and she leans back quickly, breathing only slightly heavier than normal.

"Do you want this?" asks Pepper softly.

"Yes," says Natasha. "Do you?" She doesn't say, _what about Tony?_  but Pepper hears it anyway.

"I do," says Pepper. "It's fine, you know."

Natasha thinks of Phil and Clint, their easy rules. Yes, she knows.

"Okay then," she says, and stands up quickly. The sunlight hits her eyes like a lance and for the first time in weeks Natasha doesn't feel like she is about to fly apart. She holds out her hand.

Pepper takes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry but at this stage it doesn't look like I'm ever going to complete this story. A lot of things got in the way.
> 
> This is the vague plan I had for the rest of the plot - hopefully it provides some degree of closure:
> 
> \- Natasha bounces around some more universes. I really wanted to explore some sex/gender/sexuality changes - in this verse, Natasha Prime is cis, pansexual, and panromantic, but I wanted to explore some universes where she/he/they were trans (from various directions - eg, Natasha as an amab trans woman, Nathaniel as an afab trans guy, Nat as a genderfluid person to go along with all their other fluidity - and the implications of all these identities re: the Red Room and Natasha's constructedness), Natasha as homosexual but heteroromantic, Natasha as ace and/or aro, Natasha as pan but celibate due to trauma. I wanted to explore some of her history with Yelena in particular, and James/Bucky as well. I loved CA:TWS, and I'm sad that I won't be able to explore that.  
> \- I also wanted to explore some images of Natasha as a villain, Natasha as the Director of SHIELD, Natasha in universes where she made some different calls.  
> \- Natasha arrives in a universe where Phil is alive, and had been in a similar poly triad relationship with Clint and Natasha - but in his universe, C and N are dead. They both work through some trauma, and Natasha has to decide if she even wants to go back to her own universe, or if she wants to stay in that one and muddle through helping each other - but ultimately, she doesn't want to leave her universe's Clint on his own, and the choice is taken away from her anyway when she universe-hops again.  
> \- Natasha has some more interactions with Clint, and with Phil, and ultimately she realises that Phil is alive even in universes that diverged after the events of The Avengers - which gives her hope that he might be alive in her original universe, as well.  
> \- With the help of some alternate Lokis, Natasha travels back to her own universe - which involves skipping back through all the universes she came through on the way.  
> \- she gets back to her own universe, has a long talk with Clint, and they both find Phil and give him a LONG scolding. Cuddles and makeouts ensue.  
> \- Loki's goal had been to instil some distrust between Natasha and SHIELD, which turns out to be infested with Hydra. An epic and spytastic battle commences, similar but not identical to the events of CA:TWS. Loki cackles into the sunset and everyone lives happily ever after.


End file.
